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Monday, May 21, 2007

Fear and Loathing at Hank's Oyster Bar

Last week I went on a first date. A first date. You know, meaning we'd never gone out on a date before. We barely knew each other.

So on this first date, we went to Hank's Oyster Bar, which we were both dying to try. The weather was perfect and we wandered around Dupont for the half hour or so we waited for an outside table.

We sat down at our nicely situated table on the outside patio. We'd just ordered beers when two men got seated at the next table. Which was inches from ours.

I don't know what the man next to me looked like, but his dining companion had dark hair and a sort of lobster orange-red face. I understood the breezy "I just got back from a Caribbean vacation" tan look he was going for. But.

Anyway, I was chatting with my date when Lobster Man (let's just refer to him as LM) said, very loudly "I have a very high libido. Probably too high."

My date and I raised our eyebrows at each other.

He went on, "Probably because I'm Jewish. Oh, and I have an enormous penis."

Now, if it hadn't been a first date, and I'd known my dining companion better, I'd have said, very loudly and without hesitation, "Oh, sweetie, you guys totally have those things in common! You and and our neighbor could bond!"

But I didn't want to horrify or mortify him on date one. And actually, I know nothing about his particulars.

So we sort of ignored LM and went back to chatting. Which was hard, because LM was very loud. And every time we talked louder to hear each other, he'd raise his voice.

Our oysters arrived and my date turned his attention to them. And to getting me to try one, even though they kind of ick me. I did eventually try one. And they are so not my thing.

The next thing that got our attention was LM loudly describing his experience with online dating, beginning with a description of his online photos. He'd stuck a sock in his pants in one photo, and now so many more men contact him, many of them asking to see "it" in person.

Huh.

Now, my date told me after we'd fled, immediately post-dinner, that he was dying to ask the guy to whip out the allegedly enormous penis. But he didn't want to embarrass me.

Of course I said, "Oh, I wish you had! I'd have asked to take a picture! We could've horrified him!"

But, since it was a first date, we both just cringed, leaned forward a bit more to hear each other, and focused on our food. Which was fabulous. I'd not been there before, and I was delighted. I liked our server, loved our food, and the weather, as I said, was delightful. Everything could've been perfect.

We were almost through dinner when LM leaned towards his dining companion and said, "You're a bottom, right?"

I choked a little on my fish, and my date froze, a bite of lobster risotto poised on fork in mid-air. Nothing could have prepared us for what came next.

The man confirmed that he was, in fact, a bottom, and LM said, "So, have you ever been in the middle of sex and had to take a shit?"

And so the man next to me said that there had, just once, been an unfortunate incident involving involuntary excretion.

Poo. Sex and poo. With dinner. Yikes! Yuck!

My jaw dropped. My date was furious. We both have strong stomachs but it's such an ugly visual with food.

We got the check and bailed post-haste.

I thought it was a really weird date; he thought it was an interview. Either way, the kind of overheard conversation that makes you throw up a little in your mouth. Which really sucks over a nice meal.

Something about gay men I've noticed living in Dupont - nothing is too promiscuous for them and nothing is too gross for discussion. It's shocking. But then mention a tampon, and they run screaming for more drugs to numb their pain. They are parodies of themselves.